Spy Plane Fries Air Traffic Control Computers, Shuts Down LAX

On 6/05/2014 4:46 AM, Larry Dighera wrote:

Hey, if you think this is pathetic, wait until NextGen ATC is deployed. A
satellite based system, vulnerable to solar disruption, terrestrial jamming,
and lacking any means of empirical determination of aircraft location is
destined to cause more hazards to airline traffic than it is designed to
overcome.


http://www.nbcnews.com/news/investigations/spy-plane-fries-air-traffic-control-computers-shuts-down-lax-n95886
Spy Plane Fries Air Traffic Control Computers, Shuts Down LAX
By Andrew Blankstein

A relic from the Cold War appears to have triggered a software glitch at a
major air traffic control center in California Wednesday that led to delays and
cancellations of hundreds of flights across the country, sources familiar with
the incident told NBC News.

On Wednesday at about 2 p.m., according to sources, a U-2 spy plane, the same
type of aircraft that flew high-altitude spy missions over Russia 50 years ago,
passed through the airspace monitored by the L.A. Air Route Traffic Control
Center in Palmdale, Calif. The L.A. Center handles landings and departures at
the region’s major airports, including Los Angeles International (LAX), San
Diego and Las Vegas.

The computers at the L.A. Center are programmed to keep commercial airliners
and other aircraft from colliding with each other. The U-2 was flying at 60,000
feet, but the computers were attempting to keep it from colliding with planes
that were actually miles beneath it.

Seems a bit iffy to me. Suppose it's true that the computers acted as if
the U-2 were much lower. They can't keep airliners away from ONE errant
subsonic plane?

Sylvia.